


Doors

by professorjjong



Category: SHINee
Genre: Angst, Cross-Posted on LiveJournal, Lots of discussion about death, M/M, Romance, brief mention of rape and murder, but i guess it's still disappointing except the story follows them around in the afterlife..., discussions of sex & mild/brief sexual content, resurrection AU, swearings, the characters die at the very beginning so there's no disappointment or anything, yeah whatever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-19
Updated: 2016-08-19
Packaged: 2018-11-05 10:52:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11011971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/professorjjong/pseuds/professorjjong
Summary: Just because you’re dead doesn’t mean the adventure has to end. If you decide to play again, just hit restart.





	Doors

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is for Naomi's birthday. I'm sorry it's late, babe. I really hope you like it, and just know... I dunno that I love you? And that I'm gonna love you forever and, thinking about how much you mean to me, I've probably loved you since the beginning of time, too.
> 
> This was originally going to be only 2-3 k but as you can see...that did not happen

There’s no doubt in anyone’s mind, really, that a car accident is one of the worst ways to go. One second you’re fine and the next your car is on fire and upside-down and all you really feel is this fear. A fear that consumes your every inch, that lights the sparks in your lungs, that takes away even the pain of your bleeding, concussive head because it’s creating its own type of pain around your heart. You just don’t want to be there, you want to be home, you want it to end.  
  
Jinki, aged fifty-seven with a full head of powdery gray hair, had been driving. His husband, Taemin, fifty-three, had been sitting shotgun, holding in his hand a newspaper and explaining to Jinki something that doesn’t even matter anymore.  
  
And then the truck in front of them had skidded. They didn’t know why, if something had happened up ahead or if there had been a spill on the road, but suddenly the truck was taking up three lanes of traffic and making a god-awful groan.  
  
Then the truck was on its side and Jinki tried but he couldn’t brake in time. Their car went careening directly into it. Then there was an explosion, and then they were gone.  
  
**  
  
First, it was all white. Jinki wasn’t sure if his eyes were open or closed. His mind felt like it was submerged in syrup, thoughts sluggish and incoherent.  
  
Sensation returned starting at his toes, then slowly making its way upward. It was warmth; a comforting, sweet warmth that sent tingles through him. His mind remained as though in slow-motion, and he could only think of the awareness slowly growing in him.  
  
When it reached the base of his neck, Jinki suddenly felt the overwhelming, almost painful, urge to breathe. So he gasped for air, and now his mind was working again, and the crash replayed on his eyelids and his heart tightened as he opened his eyes and called out, “T-Taemin!”  
  
“Jinki!”  
  
Jinki blinked again to find his surroundings had completely changed. He was in a small, gray room, the wooden floorboards cold against the bare soles of his feet.  
  
“Oh my god. Is that you, Jinki?”  
  
The familiar voice sent sparks through Jinki’s veins. He turned on his heel toward the voice to find Taemin standing some feet away.  
  
“Oh thank god,” Jinki sighed, rushing forward and pressing Taemin tightly to him. “I’m so glad you’re okay, Tae.”  
  
Taemin, however, pushed him away. Jinki’s brow furrowed. “What’s the matter?”  
  
Taemin raised a hand to touch Jinki’s cheek gingerly, shaking his head slightly as he did so. “Jinki... you look like you're twenty.”  
  
And it was then that Jinki realized what he should have certainly realized moments before: that the Taemin in front of him was not graying, did not have crow’s feet or worry lines. He couldn’t have been older than twenty-five, with full cheeks and messy black hair and smooth, flawless skin.  
  
“Christ,” he muttered, raising one of his own hands to cup Taemin’s cheek. Taemin leaned into the touch, curving his neck so he could press a soft kiss to the heel of Jinki’s palm. Jinki giggled, the situation before him so strange yet familiar.  
  
Jinki watched as Taemin’s eyes suddenly darkened, his expression hardening. He took hold of Jinki’s wrist and pressed Jinki’s hand to the base of his neck. “Does this mean we’re dead?”  
  
Jinki’s mind flashed back to the crash, something cold and dense forming in his chest. “I think so.” He raised his head, once again taking in his surroundings and finding them just as drab as he did before. It was just a small, rectangular room, made entirely of old, wooden planks on both the wall and floor and desperate for a new coat of paint.  “Do you think this is heaven?”  
  
Taemin ignored the question, his grip tightening over Jinki’s wrist. “What about Minho?”  
  
Jinki bit down on his lip, running the pads of his fingers comfortingly over Taemin’s skin. “He’ll be okay,” he assured in a soft voice, holding back the distress multiplying in his own system at the thought of their son. “Sure he’ll miss us, but he’s an adult. He doesn’t really need his dads anymore.”  
  
“Yeah I... fuck, I guess you’re right but...” He sniffled loudly, tears pooling in his eyes. “Does this mean we won’t see him again?”  
Jinki pulled Taemin flush against him, burying his head at the base of Taemin’s neck. Taemin did the same to Jinki, his body shuddering with every little cry he let loose. Jinki let a few tears of his own fall, too, and he sent out a prayer--to no one, to anyone--that someone please watch over their son.  
  
It took time, but eventually they both calmed. Jinki still embraced him tightly, propping up his chin on Taemin’s shoulder and bobbing them side to side as he hummed and ran his fingers soothingly over Taemin’s back.  
  
Letting out a particularly loud sniffle, Taemin raised his hand to prop up his chin on Jinki’s shoulder. “Jinki, did you notice...” he began, pausing to swallow thickly and sniffle again.  
  
“Notice what?”  
  
Taemin snorted in what was probably supposed to be chuckle. “That we’re completely naked.”  
  
Jinki pushed Taemin off of his chest and peered downward to find, just as Taemin had said, that both were entirely exposed.  
  
“How did I not notice that?” Jinki questioned, exasperated. He looked back upwards to see Taemin smiling weakly.  
  
“You’re not the most observant when you’re worried about something.”  
  
Jinki sighed. “True, but we should get some clothes...” He raised his head, scanning the room before his eyes settled on a wooden dresser with white, peeling paint. His brow furrowed, brain spinning with how he could have possibly not noticed it before.  
  
Releasing Taemin, he made his way over to the dresser and pulled out a drawer, which contained two pairs of jeans and two black tee-shirts.  
  
“Here,” he said as he grabbed hold of one of the jeans and a tee and tossed them to Taemin. “Hopefully those fit.”  
  
As Jinki pulled on the pair he had reserved for himself, he found, strangely enough, that they fit him perfectly.  “Weird,” he muttered to himself as he straightened the hem of the tee before turning behind him to see Taemin, now dressed, running his hands through his hair. “So…what do we do now?”  
  
Taemin’s eyes wandered to the wall beyond Jinki. “There’s a door.”  
  
Jinki turned around to see a worn, wooden door, paint peeling and knob covered in dust—which he had somehow, yet again, failed to notice. “Should we go in?”  
  
Taemin stepped forward to stand behind Jinki and the two linked arms. “Nowhere else to go,” he chirped. “Maybe it’ll take us somewhere nicer than this.”  
  
Jinki grinned, the two walking side by side to the door. “Like where?”  
  
Taemin reached for the handle with his free hand, shrugging as he turned it noisily. “Home, maybe.”  
  
The hinges screeched loudly as Taemin pulled the door back like it hadn't been moved in decades. The noise was so high-pitched and painful Jinki closed his eyes instinctively, and when he opened them all the air was forced from his lungs.  
  
“It’s home,” Jinki breathed.  
  
And it was exactly the same as they left it, as though they had just walked through the front door of their apartment. It opened up to a horizontal hallway, the master bedroom and bath to the left, the guest room directly ahead, then the hallway expanding into the kitchen and dining room to the right, with another door leading to the living room.  
  
Jinki turned his head to the large, wall-sized mirror beside them. His reflection stared back at him, young and wide-eyed. Turning to face it, he pinched his cheek and ran the fingers of his opposite hand over his wrinkle-free forehead. It didn't feel real.  
  
“Jinki, look at this!”  
  
Jinki raised his head, finding that Taemin had continued deeper into the house. “Coming!” he called, giving his odd reflection one last glance before following Taemin’s voice into the kitchen. He found his husband leaning back into the counter, his brow furrowed and one hand on his chin.  
  
He followed Taemin’s gaze to the coffee mug on the kitchen table, then made his way over to the table and took the mug in his hand. “What is it?” he asked, investigating the inside of the cup but finding it empty.  
  
“That’s the cup you drank out of this morning,” Taemin explained, his voice low. “And you were sitting right there.” His eyes widened, and he pushed away from the counter to hurry to the fridge, pulling it open with all his weight so that he almost fell over. “A-and here’s the leftovers from last night. Look, smell it! It’s still fresh!”  
  
Jinki, restoring the mug to its place, made his way over to Taemin and sniffed the open plastic container of meat. “Smells fine.”  
  
“Do you think the rest of the place is the same?” Taemin asked, popping the lid back on the food and placing it once more in the refrigerator. “Let’s go check.”  
  
Grabbing hold of his hand, Taemin led Jinki down the hall and into their bedroom. It too looked exactly the same as they left it: bed covers rumpled, Jinki’s closet door half-open, his reading glasses and a half-empty glass of water waiting for him on his bedside table. Taemin hurried to his own side of the bed and pulled open the drawer of his own nightstand, producing his cellphone and pressingly madly on the touch screen before throwing it to the bed with a loud sigh. “It doesn’t work.”  
  
Jinki sat down on the bed, opening his arms for Taemin, who accepted the offer and sat down beside Jinki. They tangled themselves together, Taemin burying his face in Jinki’s chest and Jinki bending his neck to nestle his nose in Taemin’s hair.  
  
After some moments, Jinki spoke up. “You know what I keep getting reminded of?”  
  
“What?” answered Taemin, muffled.  
  
“Our first apartment. Seeing you so young again, I can’t stop thinking about it. Do you remember it? After I graduated we did our military service together, and then you went back to school and I got a job and we lived in that shitty apartment near Sinchon?”  
  
“And the neighbor’s dog used to bark all night. Drove me crazy.” Taemin hmphed, pulling away from Jinki and rising from the bed. “I’m going to find something else to change into. I think wearing my own clothes might make me feel better.”  
  
Jinki raised from the bed himself, trying to fight back a smile when he realized how effortlessly he was able to straighten his knees and rise. “I think I’ll do the same.”  
  
As he made his way over to the opposite side of the bed, Jinki watched as Taemin pulled open the door to his closet.  
  
Jinki reacted first, bounding across the room and racing into Taemin’s closet—or their first apartment, really. “Holy shit!” he shouted, taking in the shitty furniture, coffee table overflowing with textbooks and study materials (Taemin’s), Jinki’s old coat, a ratty thing they had thrown out perhaps a dozen years earlier, hanging by the door, as new as could be. Even the kitchenette, with its malfunctioning oven and half-broken stove, sported a small pile of dirty dishes.  
  
Taemin raced forward from behind him, making his way over to their mini-fridge, as they had spent the last two years in this apartment with a mini after the larger one had broken and their landlord had repeatedly avoided buying a new one. Taemin pulled it open and produced a box of fried chicken, pulling open the cover excitedly. “Oh my god it looks like we just ordered it.”  
  
“Is heaven supposed to be Narnia?” Jinki asked, running his hand through his hair in disbelief. “Let’s check the bedroom.”  
  
And sure enough, that was the same too. The covers sported an ugly floral pattern, and the pillows were all mismatched—both covers and pillows had been stolen by Jinki from his parents’ attic. Taemin gasped loudly when he finally noticed the old truck right at the foot of the bed. “I missed this stupid thing,” he sighed, dropping to his knees to unlock it. “What happened to it again?”  
  
“Minho threw up inside of it when he was four and we couldn’t get the smell or the stain to come out,” Jinki replied, watching as Taemin fumbled with the lock.  
  
“That horrible kid,” Taemin chuckled, the lock finally coming undone. Taemin reached his hands eagerly inside, pulling out various objects that all made Jinki’s heart glow. There was the lop-sided scarf Taemin had knitted for him after he had found a pair of needles on the subway; a pair of “lucky running shoes” Taemin would religiously wear whenever he had a test; a music box from Jinki’s grandmother; and a small, wooden box full of a plethora of buttons, pins, rings, and pebbles. All things that they had no longer, either lost or ruined by time, or their son.  
  
“Didn’t we end up putting Minho’s baby teeth in there?” Taemin asked, leaning over Jinki to peer inside the box, stirring its contents with an inquisitive finger.  
  
“Yeah, I think we did,” Jinki said. “Now that I think about it, wasn’t that a bit weird?”  
  
Taemin raised his head, blinking rapidly. “What do you mean?”  
  
“Keeping a box of his teeth. It makes it seem like we were going to cast a curse with them, or clone him or something.”  
  
Taemin smiled goofily. "I liked it because you could take it," here, he reached for the box and closed it, lifting it to his ear, "and shake it. The sound got a little different with each year until he was, what, ten?”  
  
Jinki shook his head. “No, eleven. He lost his last tooth when he was hit in the face while playing soccer, remember?”  
  
“Oh yeah, that’s right! And when we saw him get hit we were so worried that he was in pain but really… he was the happiest kid in the world that day. He thought that made him a grown-up.” Taemin shook the box again, the sound metallic and somewhat grating. “I wish this box had his teeth, though. It's so much prettier like this, and the other one is so beat-up.”  
  
Jinki’s eyes lit up, an idea sparking in his mind. “Wait here for a sec,” he said hurriedly, bouncing to his feet and rushing through the open front door, which led back to their more recent home. The box was just where it should be, beneath Taemin’s nightstand.  
  
But, so soon as Jinki walked through the closet to their apartment, the box became considerably heavier. Confused, he opened it and stared down at the same assortment of random objects he and Taemin had been poking at a minute before.  
  
“Um, Jinki?”  
  
“Wait a second!” Jinki replied, stepping cautiously backward into their more recent home, his eyes glued to the box. He watched as first the color of all the objects changed into a bone white, then the weight on his hands lessened and the contents morphed into Minho’s twenty baby teeth. “Taemin, get in here!”  
  
Taemin shuffled loudly in the other room, the floorboards creaking under his weight as he rounded the corner. “Jinki, you won’t believe me but the box suddenly disappeared for a bit. Just vanished into thin air!”  
  
Jinki raised his head, holding out his hand to keep Taemin from crossing into their home. “Can you get the box, Taemin? I want to try something.”  
  
Taemin’s brow furrowed, but he obeyed, rushing off to grab the box and returning a moment later, holding it in his hands.  
  
“Before,” Jinki began, I tried to take this into the apartment, but—here, let me show you.” Jinki turned the box around in his hand, tilting it forward so Taemin could see its contents. “As I started walking forward,” Jinki continued, taking small steps out of the bedroom and toward Taemin. He watched Taemin’s eyes widen and threaten to fall out of his skull as the weight of the box increased in his hands, while its older form disappeared right out of Taemin’s palms.  
  
“L-let’s try it the other way,” Taemin suggested, waiting for Jinki to step back into the bedroom before opening his own box, spinning it around so Taemin could see its contents, and then stepping across the threshold. Sure enough, the newer version of the box vanished from Jinki’s hands, while the older’s contents changed into the teeth.  
  
“This is crazy,” Taemin breathed, staring down at the box and then up at Jinki.  
  
“Let’s try bringing something newer over there,” he said, turning on his heel to place the box on the bed behind them. Taemin did the same with the other box, placing it at the edge of their kitchenette before joining Jinki in unplugging a lamp and carrying it past the threshold to their older home.  
  
Through much experimentation, they discovered that carrying something that belonged in only one home into the other would make it disappear straight from their hands and appear undisturbed where it belonged. It didn't matter if it was something from the old home to the newer, or vis verse, it was the same each time. Bringing over something that had a place in both homes would make the one that belonged there disappear, while the foreign one would take the shape of the other. The one that belonged there would reappear when the foreign one left, either in the spot where it belonged or in the hands of Jinki or Taemin, provided they had been holding it earlier and did not move or drop their hands between the foreign object entering and leaving.  
  
Entering the bedroom of their old apartment, after ensuring both boxes were in their proper places, Jinki collapsed onto the bed. “This is insane,” he muttered, staring up at the ceiling.  
  
Taemin too crawled up onto the bed, straddling Jinki’s waist.  
  
Jinki raised his hand to eyes. “Taemin, please. Not now. Don’t you think…I don’t know.”  
  
“I don’t want this either,” he replied, his voice low. Jinki removed his hands, raising an inquisitive brow. Taemin lifted a hand to gesture about the room. “This, I mean. I wanted to live. I wanted to grow old.”  
  
Jinki bit his lip, holding back a smile. “You already were old.”  
  
Taemin pushed his shoulder affectionately. “That means you must have been ancient,” he grumbled. “And it I’m just really glad that we’re here together.”  
  
Jinki’s gaze softened. “I think I would have lost my mind already if you weren’t here.”  
  
“So…we should celebrate each other’s company, shouldn’t we?” Taemin joked, making Jinki snort and jab a finger into his sensitive abdomen. “Oh come on, Jinki,” Taemin said with a laugh, grabbing hold of Jinki’s wrists to keep him from poking him again. “When did you last have sex with a twenty-five-year-old?”  
  
This time, Jinki couldn’t hold back his laughter. “You’re ridiculous, Lee Taemin.”  
  
Taemin leaned forward, pressing his lips to Jinki's. "And I'm really flexible and full of stamina. And a lot better at sex than when I was twenty-five."  
  
Jinki bobbed his head, brushing the tip of his nose along Taemin’s cheek. “I guess… I shouldn’t miss this opportunity.”  
  
“Exactly,” Taemin replied lowly, moving his hands so he was holding Jinki’s by the wrist above his head before diving his lips down again for a slow, deep kiss.  
  
**  
  
They spent days like this—or maybe weeks. All the electric clocks in their house didn’t work, like their phones, and the mechanical ones had been stripped of their hands. Outside didn’t help either, as the windows all reflected their proper views, yes, but in a state of suspended animation. They were stuck in mid-day, but void of the usual buzzing traffic and pedestrians. Jinki and Taemin put down all the blinds.  
  
They also found that have to sleep they never tired, something they discovered after they spent a considerable time rolling between the sheets. They could still sleep if they wanted to. Get under the covers, close your eyes, breathe deeply in then _bam_. Sleep. Dreams and all.  
  
Along with sleeping, they discovered they didn't have to eat either, but they did both anyway. It was a bit of a way to make sense of it all. Wake up, breakfast. Spend a while reading or watching movies or talking, wondering if their son was okay, lunch. Kill time, dinner. Shower, sleep.  
  
After what they thought of as a little over a week and a half, they ran out of food in both fridges. Of course, it wasn’t anything of great concern for their physical states, but it did take a hit to their mentality. They hadn’t slept together since the first night, and they spent most of their time on their own. Jinki reacquainted himself with the plush couch in their living room, opposite the TV, but he stared at the ceiling instead (he always kept the door to the room open, despite how desperate he was for privacy. Both he and Taemin were too paranoid to close any doors now). He wasn’t sure what exactly Taemin did, where he was, but to be honest he didn’t really care.  
  
He had enough on his mind, a great enough weight on his chest. And yeah, a lot of his burden he shared with Taemin, but he had to think on it himself.  
  
He was dead. If time worked the same here as it did back on earth, right about now Minho was probably going through their home with his wife, deciding what to keep and what to throw out. A part of him hoped Minho might just move in instead, but when Minho was nine and his hamster had died, after the tiny funeral, he had thrown away all remnants of it.  
Jinki groaned, burying his head in his hands. “But I’m not a hamster.”  
  
“You sure have some weird dreams,” said a voice. An unfamiliar voice.  
  
Fear spiking in Jinki’s veins, he propelled himself off the couch, almost falling onto his ass when he landed awkwardly. Two men were standing some feet away, both in their mid-twenties. One had black hair parted neatly in the middle, and was standing straight and proudly as he watched Jinki with a small smile, pressing against the dimples in his cheeks. He was wearing a graphic tee with the sleeves cut off, and a pair of torn, washed jean shorts with black loafers. The man beside him, wearing a black shirt with a red plaid button-down over it and black jeans tucked into tan, military-esque boots, was a few centimeters shorter with platinum blonde hair, shaved short on one side.  
  
“Sorry for scaring you,” said the man with black hair, voice sincere.  
  
Jinki swallowed thickly, every muscle in his body tensing. “Who are you? How did you get here?”  
  
“We asked the doors to take us to someone who would be fun to hang out with,” answered the blonde, whose voice Jinki recognized from the dream comment.  
  
Jinki’s brow furrowed. “T-the doors?”  
  
“Yeah, the doors.” The blonde side-stepped toward the small storage closet in the room, slotting his fingers into the small handle.  
The door rumbled as he pulled it to the side, revealing what was certainly not the inside of the closet. It was a scene completely unfamiliar to Jinki; a neat apartment with white walls, a surprisingly full and well-kept kitchen, and an elegant, black leather couch in front of a considerably large television. "We came here from our apartment."  
  
Footsteps sounded from the main room, followed by Taemin’s voice. “J-Jinki? What’s going on?”  
  
The blonde’s eyes widened. “You’re not here alone?”  
  
Taemin must have heard the other voice because his footsteps sped up to a run as he rushed toward them. On arriving, he leaned against the doorframe leading to the living room and peered in, his eyes wide and mouth agape. “Who are you guys?” he breathed. “Where did you come from?”  
  
The black-haired man pointed with his thumb behind him. “From my apartment. Just took a door,” he replied simply. “As for who we are, I’m Kibum.”  
  
The blonde stepped forward, slinging an arm over Kibum’s shoulder and kissing his cheek noisily. “I’m Jonghyun, the sexy boyfriend.”  
  
Kibum snorted disapprovingly, pushing Jonghyun away from him with a grin.  
  
“I’m Taemin and that’s my husband, Jinki.”  
  
“Taemin!” Jinki hissed, turning to his husband as his blood turned to acid, every inch of him stinging painfully. Taemin had entered the room now, meeting Jinki’s gaze with a determined one of his own. “We can’t trust these guys, we don’t know who they are or—”  
  
“What are they going to do to us, Jinki? Kill us?”  
  
That shut him up.  
  
Kibum cleared his throat noisily. “Well, I think we might not actually be welcome here, Jjong,” he muttered, removing Jonghyun’s hand from his shoulder. “We’ll be leaving now.”  
  
Taemin took a step forward, shaking his head vigorously. “Please stay,” he replied, pleading. “We’ve been here for two weeks—we think—and we still have no idea what’s going on or where we are.”  
  
“Ah,” breathed Jonghyun knowingly. “You guys haven’t found your books then.”  
  
Jinki piped up. “Our books?”  
  
Kibum stepped toward the storage closet, sliding it closed before turning back around to face the two. “You said you were married, right?” He waited for both to nod before continuing. “The door won’t listen to me, but one of you will probably be able to get both of your books if you ask.”  
  
“What exactly is going on with the doors here?” Taemin asked, walking forward to stand beside Kibum.  
  
“They listen to you,” he replied. “If you think about a place, or a thing, the doors can all take you there. Since you’re used to the layout of your own home, when you open a door it’ll take you to the room that should be there, but if you opened it while thinking of something else, you’ll end up somewhere else.”  
  
Taemin nodded in understanding. “That explains why my closet leads to our old apartment. Jinki made me think about before I opened the door.”  
  
Kibum chortled. “Well, you’ll be able to fix that if you just close the door and open it again while thinking about your closet.”  
  
Jinki took a step forward, Jonghyun’s dark eyes immediately flitting to him. “What about those books you mentioned earlier?”  
  
“They’ll explain everything,” Kibum said simply before turning his attention back to Taemin. “Open the door and, as you open it, ask it for your books. Your book and Jinki’s.”  
  
Taemin nodded, turned to the door and opened it with a swift pull to the right to a small room, the same color of gray as where Jinki and Taemin had arrived. It sported a small square table in the center, a chair at each side, and two thick, leather-bound books at the center of the table.  
  
Taemin entered the room without even an ounce of hesitation, Kibum on his heels. Jinki’s eyes moved to Jonghyun, and a chill traveled down his spine when he realized Jonghyun was staring back at him. It took a second for him to recognize that his eyes were soft, more concerned and compassionate than Jinki had honestly been expecting.  
  
Taking a deep breath, Jinki too entered the small room, Jonghyun just behind him.  
  
Kibum had taken a seat at the side of the table opposite the entrance. Jonghyun grabbed the chair to the left and brought it over to the corner nearest Kibum, so they were sitting almost side-to-side. He took Kibum’s hand, lying open and palm-up on the table, into his own, running his thumb over the soft flesh of Kibum’s palm.  
  
Taemin, still standing, turned to Jinki and motioned him closer to the table with a rapid wave of his hand. “Look,” he muttered, pointing to the two books. “They’re ours.”  
  
And sure enough, as Jinki approached, he noticed golden writing on both covers. Taemin pushed one closer to him, and Jinki narrowed his eyes to read:  
  
 _Lee Jinki_  
  
 _Born in Seoul, South Korea on December 14, 2009 in the Gregorian Calendar, or the 28_ _th_ _of the 10_ _th_ _Lunar Month_  
  
 _Died in Incheon, South Korea on May 6, 2066 in the Gregorian Calendar, or the 13_ _th_ _of the 4_ _th_ _Lunar Month_  
  
 _Married to Lee Taemin, born on July 18, 2013 in the Gregorian Calendar, or the 11_ _th_ _of the 6_ _th_ _Lunar Month and died on May 6, 2066 in the Gregorian Calendar, or the 13_ _th_ _of the 4_ _th_ _Lunar Month_  
  
 _Father to Lee Minho, born on December 10, 2038 in the Gregorian Calendar, or the 15_ _th_ _of the 11_ _th_ _Lunar Month, married to Jung Soojung, born on October 24, 2039 in the Gregorian Calendar, or the 6_ _th_ _of the 9_ _th_ _Lunar Month_  
  
“Holy shit,” he muttered, running a finger lightly over the golden letters. “That’s definitely me.”  
  
“Here,” offered Taemin softly, using one hand to pull another chair closer, and the two sat on one side of the table, elbows bumping into each other as they examined the covers.  
  
“What…what do we do with it?” Jinki asked, raising his head to look at Kibum and Jonghyun  
.  
“You read it,” Kibum replied simply. “It’s full of accounts of all your past lives.”  
  
Jinki’s brow furrowed. “Past lives?”  
  
Kibum nodded. “Resurrection. You have probably lived thousands of times. In different bodies, time periods, locations. And they’re all written down in that book. Everything from the dawn of man to the life you lived before you came here.”  
  
“Christ,” muttered Taemin beside him.  
  
“Yeah it’s crazy,” agreed Kibum. “But it’s true. Read it, then you’ll believe me.” Rising to his feet, he patted Jonghyun’s back with his free hand. “Come on. We should give them some privacy.”  
  
Jonghyun nodded, standing but refusing to part his hand from Kibum’s. He let Kibum lead him back to the door before Kibum stilled his feet and, turning his head over his shoulder, offered, “If you guys want to talk with us again, just ask a door for Jonghyun and Kibum.”  
  
“Thank you,” said Taemin, leaning over his shoulder.  
  
Jinki nodded, twisting at the waist to face them. “Thank you for showing us this.”  
  
Kibum shrugged. “You have a right to know what this place is, don’t you?”  
  
Jinki and Taemin watched as Jonghyun pulled at Kibum’s wrist, leading the other back into Jinki and Taemin’s living room. They walked to the door leading into their dining room, closed it, then opened it again, revealing briefly the apartment Jinki had peered into earlier. They softly shut the door behind them.  
  
Jinki turned back around, facing his book. Like the walls around them, it was a dark, greenish-gray, the pages a stained yellow. It was probably the thickest book Jinki had ever laid eyes on, easily over a thousand pages. He didn’t even think of trying to lift it.  
  
“Should…” Taemin began, his voice delicate and eyes settled on his own book. “Should we read them?”  
  
Jinki sighed loudly. “I think so. According to Jonghyun and Kibum, it will explain what’s going on here. That should help, shouldn’t it?”  
  
“Yeah.” He reached with his free hand for Jinki’s, who took it in his own and grasped him tightly. “C-can we open them at the same time?”  
  
Swallowing thickly, Jinki nodded. “Yeah.” His heart hammering in his chest, something crawling up his veins, something big and thick and spreading discomfort through him. “I really, really don’t want to read it alone.”  
  
Jinki lifted his free hand to the book, gently thumbing the cover as he waited for Taemin to raise his own hand and curve his fingers beneath the cover. “Ready?”  
  
“Ready.”  
  
Jinki pulled back the cover, resting it tenderly on the wooden table.  
  
On the very first page, in an elegant hand, the following was written in ink dark as pitch:  
  
 _You are between_  
  
 _The Entrance and the Gateway_  
  
A chill passed through Jinki, pressing a stone against his tongue and tensing his shoulders. “The Gateway,” he muttered, the word immediately dying his lips.  
  
“It…it leads to earth?”  
  
Jinki turned to his husband, whose expression was twisted with confusion, probably a reflection of Jinki’s own appearance now. “How did we know that?” he muttered.  
  
Taemin turned back to the book, biting on his lip before letting out a small exhale and carefully sliding his finger beneath that first worn page.  “I have no idea.”  
  
Jinki found his own fingers moving to turn the page as well. His heart weighed down inside his chest, casting a horrid heaviness over his every inch. “Should…should we keep reading?”  
  
Taemin tightened his hold on Jinki’s hand. “Yeah,” he breathed, turning the page.  
  
The next page was far longer than the first, filled almost to the very edge by the same black ink and graceful hand.  
  
“Born in 3347 BC,” Jinki read, recognition lighting his eyes. “Wait, is this my first life?”  
  
“Mine says 3349 BC,” added Taemin. “And I apparently died seventeen years later.”  
  
“I think I was a girl. And I died when I was fifteen,” Jinki said with a shudder. “It's so horrible to think that people used to die so young…”  
  
Taemin sniffed. “Does yours say how you died? I don't see it on mine.”  
  
Jinki scanned the page, finally finding what he was looking for at the very last line. “...was raped and then murdered by a male fr—God, Taemin,” he exhaled, voice strained. “This is literally horrible.”  
  
“Ah shit, Jinki, I'm sorry,” Taemin replied, scratching the top of his head and biting down on his lip.  
  
Jinki sighed, running his finger along the book’s crease as an emptiness curved within his abdomen. “I mean, it's not like I remember it. I'm sure we've both had our share of shitty deaths.”  
  
Taemin shook his head, pulling the book toward Jinki before reading the last few lines aloud as he traced his finger beneath them. “He raped and murdered four teenage girls by first--okay no I'm not going to read that,” Taemin said, cutting off himself as he pulled the book toward him. He hesitated a moment before continuing, his voice slick. “And then I was stampeded by wild animals.”  
Jinki swallowed thickly. “Is it wrong to be a little relieved he died like that?”  
  
“I sure as hell don’t think so,” Taemin replied. His hand dropped to trace the side of the book, rubbing the pad of his finger over the thousand of pages. “I know you know I’m—or at least the me now—isn’t like that but...I’m still sorry.”  
  
Jinki shrugged, taking hold of his own thousand pages and flitting them with his thumb to the back cover, like he was shuffling cards. “Something tells me you’ve probably apologized quite a lot for that. And that I’ve always forgiven you.”  
  
Sighing, Taemin tightened his grip on Jinki’s hand. “Let’s skip ahead a bit,” he muttered as he took hold of a good chunk of the pages and pulled them back with a huff. “90 BC?”  
  
Jinki, turning his attention back to his book, flipped around until he found a similar date. “91 BC, and I’ve got a name this time. Rufus Cladius Matius.”  
  
“Ah, I was Metalla Quarta Epidius,” replied Taemin, his voice high and enthusiastic. After reading for a moment, he sprung his head upward, smiling broadly at Jinki. “We were married in this life, too!”  
  
Jinki blinked, raising his head. “R-really?” he asked, relief flooding through him.  
  
Through their reading, as each page was composed of a brief yet detailed description of the incarnation’s life and relations, they discovered that the two were married when Rufus was sixteen and Metalla seventeen. Metalla was the fourth daughter of a family of five daughters and two sons, and Rufus the son of a merchant family without a male head and growing poorer and poorer by the day. It was a miracle, really, that their marriage was ever arranged—perhaps because Metalla was too rebellious and thus a rather unliked daughter, so her parents gave her to him in matrimony so soon as he asked. The dowry was enough to get a ferry to Egypt, where Rufus became involved in the sale and trading of exotic animal pelts and skins until he was rich enough to return to Rome, where Metalla, who had educated herself during their stay in Egypt, managed not only the household and their three children but also much of their trading business once Rufus became too busy with government work, as he made impressive friends and was able to join the Senate.  
  
(“You stabbed Caesar.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Jinki, you totally stabbed Caesar.”)  
  
There was another life where they were peasants in China during the Ming Dynasty. They were gay settlers migrating to Haiti under the guise of being brothers. They died of dysentery going westward on the Oregon Trail. They were women, too intelligent, stoned as witches. They were slaves, bound and beaten. Sometimes they were happy, and sometimes they were something the world didn’t want, didn’t accept.  
  
They did not read their own pages, which were the last in each book. It was something always scratching at the back of Jinki's mind: what would be written in there? Which moments would even be mentioned? All of his life. On one page.  
Taemin didn’t mention reading it either.  
  
When they felt they had their fill of the books, the air having grown heavy and stale, a stone hardening in Jinki’s center, they decided to call it a night and crawled into bed. Taemin spooned him, draping an arm protectively over Jinki’s waist and pressing a soft kiss to the back of his neck. Jinki knew he wanted to say something, something that would wrap up all their past lives and all the pain they had both taken on with a pretty bow. Something that would make sense of it, of why they had hurt and why anything had happened and what they were supposed to think of it…  
  
But Taemin, as he usually did, lacked the words. Instead, his breath soft against Jinki’s scalp, he muttered a quiet, “I love you.”  
  
It wasn’t perfect, but it did the trick, and Jinki let himself slip into sleep.  
  
**  
  
“Oh, I didn’t think you guys would actually try to find us,” said Kibum, rising from the table where he had been sitting opposite Jonghyun, a game of Monopoly set up and seemingly half finished between them. Jonghyun, eying Jinki and Taemin, who had just walked through the front door (from Jinki’s closet), as he leaned back in his chair and drank from the steaming mug in his hands.  
  
“Do you guys still have coffee?” Taemin asked rapidly, confusion and hope lining his voice. He had been beyond consolation when he and Jinki had run out of their own coffee stashes some days prior.  
  
Jonghyun furrowed his brow. “What do you mean, _still_?” His words were oddly sharp, sending a strange chill down Jinki’s spine.  
“We ran out a few days ago,” Taemin replied, seemingly unfazed, his eyes flitting between Kibum and Jonghyun as he bounced back and forth on his heels.  
  
“Ah, you guys don’t know about the replenishing thing,” Kibum said, nodding his head in understanding as he made his way from the table toward the two. “Jonghyun will explain it to you while I get you both some coffee.”  
  
Taemin was likely far too ecstatic to give a proper response, so Jinki spoke up before his husband had the chance. “Thanks, Kibum. And I’ll have a little bit of cream if that's okay."  
  
“Just black for me,” said Taemin, glee lining his voice.  
  
“Gotcha,” Kibum replied, turning away from the two to enter the kitchen.  
  
Jonghyun spoke up immediately. “You guys can come in, make yourselves comfortable.” He gestured to the chair beside him and the one across from that. “Don’t worry about interrupting our game. Kibum got Boardwalk and Park Place and he owns all the railroads so I’m basically just putting off my own demise. I gave him a blowjob earlier when I landed on a property he’s got a hotel on so I wouldn’t go bankrupt but I don’t think that will work a second time.”  
  
When his two guests practically froze in their spot, Jonghyun scratched at the short hair on the side of his head.  
  
“That’s… fair,” replied Taemin after a moment, taking the seat beside where Kibum had been sitting while Jinki sat beside Jonghyun. All of Kibum's colorful Monopoly money was arranged from lowest to highest value, one half of each stack tucked beneath the board to keep the piles neat. Casting a quick glance backward to see Kibum turned away from them, he passed a hundred-dollar bill to Jonghyun, who took it gratefully.  
  
“Don’t tell me,” Jonghyun replied, his voice lined with mirth as he pushed his tongue into his cheek, forming a fist with his other hand and bringing it to his lips.  
  
Taemin chuckled, his cheeks turning a burning red. “Nah, just a thanks for showing us the books and all.”  
  
“So, how old are you guys, really?” asked Jonghyun, leaning back in his chair and flitting his eyes back and forth between the pair as the odd question rattled about in the room.  
  
Jinki shifted in his seat. “Erm…well, Tae and I were both in our fifties. We have a son named Minho who just got married a few months ago, and he’s twenty-seven.”  
  
Jonghyun nodded before bursting into a completely different strain of conversation. “If you want to get coffee again you just need to think about—what day was it that you guys went into your home?”  
  
“W-what?” stuttered Taemin.  
  
“Like, your house. What day was it when you walked in? What day did you first see it on?”  
  
Jinki blinked in confusion, and this time Taemin didn’t have any words either.  
  
Taking hold of a Monopoly piece, Jonghyun tapped it against the board almost a dozen times, the sound echoing through the room. When he spoke again, his voice was slower. “The doors can take you to specific times. When you guys go back, all you have to do is think about what date you want to see. You can think of any date and, so long as you so much as saw the inside of your home on that date, it will take you there.”  
  
“Oh, so that’s what you meant,” said Jinki, pushing his chair a little closer to the table. “We were a bit confu—”  
  
“Did you guys find anything interesting?” Jonghyun questioned, pushing the front legs of his chair off the floor and balancing on the back two. Jinki’s mind crashed into a stop, hurriedly trying to backpedal and come up with a proper response to Jonghyun’s new and equally confusing question.  
  
Taemin blinked. “Interesting?”  
  
“He means in the books,” explained Kibum as he placed two steaming mugs on the table. Taemin reached for his immediately, taking a moment to appreciate the warmth between his palms before taking a sip. When he lowered his hands, he was already smiling and Jinki felt happiness spark behind his own eyes at the sight despite the comfort twisting about his abdomen.  
  
“Kibum and I were in _Heian_ Japan, what about you?”  
  
Jinki cleared his throat, shifting in his chair for a more comfortable position. “Well, we were in Japan but it was during the _Sengoku_ age so—”  
  
“So I was a nobleman right,” continued Jonghyun. “And Bum was working as a soldier or guard of some kind and staying at the house of his cousin, a nobleman a little lower in rank than I was. I go and visit this nobleman and there I see Kibum, and I immediately want to fuck his brains out because…look at him.” Here, Kibum pressed a finger into his cheek, cocking his head to the side and smiling broadly. “So I ask this nobleman if he can transfer Kibum’s custody over to me, but the nobleman refuses, as taking up such a position would surely lower Kibum’s status and what not. So, what do I do?”  
  
“You sleep with my cousin’s wife,” offered Kibum, his voice lined with mock disapproval.  
  
“I sleep with his cousin’s wife,” parroted Jonghyun proudly. “He finds out she’s having an affair so he takes her with him to the provinces. And I seduce Kibum and we live happily ever after.”  
  
Kibum chuckled. “That’s essentially it.”  
  
And now Jonghyun was speaking only to Kibum, his gaze focused on his boyfriend, the two guests practically ignored. "Do you remember when I was the sickly daughter to a noble family in France? And you were my favorite nurse since you used to put your hand up my skirt and—"  
  
  
“You are such a perv,” Kibum muttered, rolling his eyes. For a moment his gaze met Jinki’s, and he held it for a beat before looking back at Jonghyun.  “The book didn’t mention anything like that.”  
  
Jonghyun snorted. “Those books have a tendency to not tell you anything important.”  
  
“Speaking of,” said Taemin, leaning forward over the table and toward the two, accidentally bumping his elbow against the Monopoly board. “S-sorry. But um, I was kind of wondering if you guys knew what the Gateway was.”  
  
Kibum and Jonghyun spoke at the same time, their answer automatic and flat, “It leads to earth.”  
  
Jonghyun spun back to Kibum. “J-jinx!” he cried, far too pleased.  
  
“What does it mean by earth, though?” questioned Jinki. “Do we become ghosts? Or, I dunno, are we all actually in comas and would going through the door bring us back to our bodies?”  
  
“I think it’s safe to assume we’re dead,” said Taemin flatly.  
  
Jonghyun exhaled audibly through his nose. An odd, confused sort of silence fell over them as they waited for Jonghyun to speak. But he didn’t. It was Kibum who realized soonest that he wasn’t going to.  
  
“If you guys read until the last page of your book, it…it says pretty clearly that your last life is over,” he explained, fingers white around the mug. “Considering the nature of, well, life I guess, Jonghyun and I think that going through the Gateway is like a reset button. It takes you to your next life on earth. We think.”  
  
Taemin hesitated a moment. “Do…do we have to go through?”  
  
Kibum shrugged. “Dunno, but I don’t see why we’d have to.” He took a sip from his coffee, staring down at his fingers. “I think I’ve been here for just a couple days less than you, and, aside from the book itself, I haven’t seen any mention of the Gateway. And, in theory, Jonghyun and I think you can live here without ever finding that book. So that must mean you can live here without knowing about it and without going through it.”  
  
“Are you guys going to go through?” asked Taemin.  
  
Kibum’s eyes flashed to Jonghyun, who was staring down at the table, his eyes closed and mouth half-open. Kibum chewed on his lip softly before answering. “Yeah. We’ve talked about it. We’re just waiting for the right time, you know?”  
  
“What made you decide to go through?” Jinki asked, a chill playing across his skin when not only Kibum but also Jonghyun glanced at him—Jonghyun simply by turning his head to the side, then lowering his gaze to the table again once Kibum spoke up.  
  
“It’s a risk,” said Kibum, peering down into his coffee. “There’s the possibility that whatever is waiting on that other side could be worse than what we just lived through. But it could also be better, couldn’t it?”  
  
He stared at Jonghyun for some moments, eyes heavy and mouth drawn. He stretched his arm over the table, the pads of his fingers probably just barely entering Jonghyun’s vision. Jonghyun seemed to physically stutter, his entire body jolting from shock. Kibum kept his hand in place, waiting for those few quiet moments before Jonghyun gingerly lifted his own hand, brushing his fingers over Kibum’s palm.  
  
After a few more seconds passed, the squeak of a chair turned Jinki’s attention toward his husband, who had risen to his feet. “I think we should be going now,” he said courteously. “Jinki and I have a lot to think about.”  
  
Turning to the two, Kibum nodded in understanding. “Of course. And if you need anything else, or if you just want to hang out or whatever, you’re always welcome here. Being around other people is nice.”  
  
“Same here,” agreed Jinki, rising to his own feet. From the corner of his eye, he noticed that Jonghyun had not reacted in the slightest to his surroundings. Instead, he continued to stare at Kibum’s fingers, curving up and away from the table, even as Jinki and Taemin left and shut the door softly behind them.  
  
**  
  
“Taemin?”  
  
“Yeah?” asked Taemin, stopping in his tracks and turning on his heel to face Jinki, who was seated at their kitchen table, feet propped up on one chair and holding open a book he had never gotten around to reading in one hand. Taemin’s hand scratched noisily against the inside of the chip bag, and he chewed with absolutely no desire to be even a little quiet, it seemed.  
  
“You want one?” he questioned, holding out the bag within Jinki’s grasp when it took Jinki a moment too long to respond.  
  
JInki shook his head. “Nah, I just want to talk to you.”  
  
And so Taemin sat down at the table beside him, pulling out the chair at an angle so they faced one another properly once he sat and Jinki removed his feet from the other chair and turned to face him. He offered the chip bag to Jinki once more, and this time Jinki took a few into his hand.  
  
Taemin spoke up first. “So, what do you think?”  
  
It was the day after they had spoken to Kibum and Jonghyun, between breakfast and lunch time. Like the previous night, they hadn’t discussed anything important once they had returned to their home, simply fled into their own corners and brooded before sharing a rather quiet dinner and turning in.  
  
“I don’t know,” said Jinki with an exhale. And it was true.  
  
Taemin’s fingers scratched against the inside of the bag. “I don't either,” he replied softly.  
  
They were quiet, Jinki’s brain bubbling as he tried to find the words to somehow describe what he himself wanted. What he could do.  
  
“I know we’re dead,” mumbled Taemin, drawing Jinki’s eyes upward from where they had settled on the table. “But it doesn’t feel like everything’s over.”  
  
“The Gateway is the real end,” said Jinki.  
  
Taemin exhaled audibly and shifted in his seat. “That’s when Lee Jinki and Lee Taemin _really_ go down in their graves, I guess.”  
  
Jinki snorted, but then the silence that was dancing about at the edges of their conversation finally took hold.

**

“Wow,” whistled Jinki as he and Taemin were led into Kibum and Jonghyun’s den. In actuality, it was the second floor of their already incredibly nice and spacious apartment, the walls painted a subdued green and the floor brightly-carpeted. It was pretty gaudy, if Jinki were to be honest, but his attention was almost instantaneously diverted to the massive flat-screen TV against one wall, the various game systems stacked and tucked neatly onto the wooden shelf beneath, as well as the billiard table in the center and the old arcade games lining the walls.  
  
“Pretty sweet, right?” said Jonghyun, skipping forward and then turning about on his heel to grin enthusiastically back at them.  
  
“You guys must have been _loaded_ ,” observed Taemin as he approached the nearest arcade game. Jonghyun bounded forward immediately, propping up his chin on Taemin’s shoulder as he began to gab quickly and excitedly about the game.  
  
Jinki made his way over to the game systems and the considerable number and variety of games lined up on other shelves. One title caught his eye, nostalgia nipping at his heart as he pulled it from the shelf. “Oh my god,” he mumbled, before turning his head to face Kibum. “I remember this game from when I was in elementary school!”  
  
  
“Way to remind a guy of how old he is,” Kibum laughed. “That game was just released when I bought it for Jonghyun’s twenty-third birthday.”  
  
Jinki blinked, turning his head to the slim young man standing beside him and trying to imagine him as old and graying. “For some reason I thought you were around the same age as Taemin and I.”  
  
Kibum shrugged. “Probably because we’re the same age now.”  
  
The tempting thought of asking Kibum how he had died, how it had _felt_ to be old and if he thought it made all this easier—to have lived a fuller, longer life— pulled at Jinki’s mind. Turning back to the game and flipping it over as though to read the back, he managed to resist the urge. Jonghyun so much as asking how old he and Taemin had been had made him uncomfortable beyond words and, although in this situation it would actually match rather than impede the flow of conversation, it would probably still be too invasive.  
  
Jinki jumped when Jonghyun, who at some point during Kibum and Jinki’s brief conversation, had made his way over to the TV and the shelf of games, spoke up loudly. “We should play this instead!” Pulling a game from the shelf, he tapped its cover with a finger loudly. “All four of us can play it, and there’s a team system so Kibum and I can play against you and Taemin.”  
  
Jinki narrowed his eyes, eventually recognizing the game as one he had heard of but never played. “Sounds okay to me.”  
  
“Just w-wait for me!” called Taemin, who was still standing at the arcade machine, his fingers clacking against the buttons as his other hand twisted the joystick. “I’ve only got... one mor—goddamnit." He let out an exasperated sigh, bending at the waist so he pressed his face squarely against the screen as it flashed a particularly leering GAME OVER.  
  
“Don’t worry about it too much,” offered Jonghyun, handing the game to Kibum and making his way over to Taemin. “That game is hard as all fuck.”  
  
“Why don’t you guys go get us some snacks while Jinki and I get the game set up?” suggested Kibum.  
  
“This sounds just like college,” said Taemin as he pushed himself off the game. “Snacks, video games…”  
  
“Hot boys,” Jonghyun chimed. Taemin snickered in reply, raising a hand to hi-five Jonghyun, not realizing the other was already half-way to the door. “We’ll be back with snacks!” Jonghyun announced, Taemin on his heels as both descended the stairs rather noisily.  
  
Jinki and Kibum thus set themselves to the task of getting the game set up, which was made more difficult because the game system connected to the TV was different from the one they wanted to use and “Jonghyun is the one who usually does this kind of stuff.” Eventually, however, the two collapsed into the bright blue couch in the center of the room, controllers in hand and the game’s title screen music blasting from the speakers before Kibum managed to find the remote and turn it down.  
  
“So,” he began, collapsing back onto the couch after saving their eardrums. “Did you and Taemin reach a decision about the Gateway?”  
  
Jinki hesitated for a moment, wondering if it would even be okay for him to discuss this with Kibum. It was a private matter, honestly, and Jinki knew next to nothing about the guy except he had lived longer than Jinki and was dating Jonghyun.  
  
“Not yet,” replied Jinki, fixing his eyes on the screen ahead of him and pressing the buttons on his controller to the rhythm of the theme music. “It’s…kind of hard for us to talk about right now.”  
  
“That only makes sense,” said Kibum, his voice low yet compassionate, drawing Jinki’s eyes toward him. “It’s a big decision, after all.”  
  
Jinki chewed on his lip, his next question forming and swirling about in his head as he wondered whether or not it would be okay to ask it at all. Kibum’s brows began to furrow, clearly recognizing the dismay marking Jinki’s expression. He opened his mouth to speak but Jinki, caught up in some wave of confidence ( _he started the conversation and he’s been pretty open before so…_ ), spoke up before he could.  
  
“I-if you don’t mind me asking,” he began, confidence waning somewhat once the words emerged from his lips, “and I know you kind of answered this yesterday but…how did you and Jonghyun make your decision? And why?”  
  
Kibum did not give an immediate response, leaving enough of a gap in the conversation to make Jinki doubt asking anything in the first place.  
  
But when Kibum did speak, his tone was friendly, eyes warm and focused on Jinki's. "It was pretty easy for us, actually," he explained. "Right after we figured out what the Gateway was, we just sort of looked at each other and knew."  
  
Jinki shifted, resting his controller on his knees and folding his arms over his abdomen. “W-why then? I mean, I know there’s the chance that your next life might be even better, like you said before…” here, Jinki paused, pressing his fingers into his abdomen and inhaling deeply. “And, I mean, Taemin and I didn’t live perfect lives either and all but…”  
  
Kibum waited this time, too. He waited for Jinki to finish the sentence, and Jinki scoured his own mind desperately, searching for the words, or even just the question that he wanted answered, the piece of information that would somehow make the proper choice for him and his husband undeniably clear.  
  
And Kibum watched Jinki search for the words for a while. Eventually, he spoke up, his voice smaller now. “It wasn’t perfect for us, too. Obviously. We just decided that there’s no reason for us to still be Kibum and Jonghyun.”  
  
“Oh.”  
  
And then Jinki kicked himself because that was all he could fucking say. Discomfort scratching at his insides, he looked desperately around the room, tripping over his words as he fumbled for something else to talk about.  
  
“T-this is a really nice r—I mean, your apartment is really nice.”  
  
“It is, isn’t it?” replied Kibum, crossing one leg over his knee and, turning his head over his shoulder, looking about the room himself. “It was a gift, this place. From my dad.”  
  
There was no malice in Kibum’s voice, not even a sliver of discomfort or sharpness. Jinki just barely refrained from letting out a sigh of relief that he had not offended Kibum or anything.  
  
“From your dad?” he asked dumbly, hoping to keep this rather innocuous line of conversation going.  
  
“Yep. After I graduated from university, he really wanted me to go to the states to get my master’s degree. But I didn’t want to leave Jonghyun by himself.” He leaned back against the coach, angling his head upward and running a finger down his neck. “And my dad wasn’t such a bad guy, really. Despite the times and everything. So he bought us this place for us, with the promise that I would go to get that degree eventually.”  
  
“And did you?”  
  
Kibum closed his eyes, tapping his finger thrice against his neck before straightening, his eyes open and settling on the TV. “Yeah, I did.”  
  
It was at this moment that the loud thuds of Jonghyun and Taemin racing up the stairs reached their ears, and both turned to see the two enter. Taemin was first, his arms overflowing with empty plastic bowls and bags of chips and popcorn as well as various candies. Jonghyun was just behind, holding instead one clear shopping bag and a number of shot glasses in his other hand.  
  
“Really, Jonghyun?” asked Kibum incredulously, watching as Jonghyun dropped to his knees to help Taemin set up the snacks. “Isn't it too early to drink?”  
  
Jonghyun stuck out his tongue. “Two things, Kibum. One, it’s five o’clock somewhere. And two, we’re dead and there’s no real time here. It’s whatever time we want it to be.”  
  
“Oh, we should try to line up our times,” said Taemin as he opened a bag of chips and emptied its contents into a bowl. “For Jinki and I, we’re between lunch and dinner right now.”  
  
"Ah, so you guys have been trying to stick to a schedule, too," observed Kibum. "Jonghyun and I will move to match yours, then. It's only a little past breakfast for us."  
  
“We slept in late when we were alive, too,” Jonghyun said, pulling out over a dozen bottles of soju from the shopping bag.  
  
“Speak for yourself,” snorted Kibum. “Some of us had to look nice and wake up early so they could make enough money for—wait, how did you find those?”  
  
Jinki followed Kibum’s line of sight to the soju bottles Jonghyun was still producing from the bag, only now noticing that a good number were adorned with thick, bubble-gum pink ribbons tied about their necks.  
  
Jonghyun snorted. “I found them before. You really need—well, _needed_ —a better hiding space than the back of your own closet, Kibum.”  
  
Kibum stuttered, uncrossing and then crossing his legs again as he shifted his weight back and forth. “Did you find them before, or before before?”  
  
“Before before,” Jonghyun answered, throwing away the empty bag and, taking one of the bottles with a ribbon in his hand. He opened it with a grunt and filled all four shot glasses.  
  
Jinki pushed himself onto the floor to seat himself beside Taemin, who reached forward to grab two of the shot glasses and hand one to Jinki. Kibum had done the same and was holding a glass in his own hand.  
  
It was Jonghyun who did the toast.  
  
“To death, which brought us all together,” he cheered, raising his own shot and downing it.  
  
“To death,” the other three echoed.  
  
**  
  
“I thought you’d be in here.”  
  
Jinki looked up from his book to see Taemin standing at the entranceway to the living room. Jinki, who had been lying on his back, leaned up on his elbows to watch Taemin approach the couch. “Hi.”  
  
Taemin waved his hand. “Sit up.”  
  
His brows furrowing together, Jinki pushed himself up so he sat straight at one end of the couch.  
  
Taemin walked past Jinki, sitting on the couch and twisting his body so that he could lie back with his head in Jinki’s lap. Jinki snorted, to which Taemin poked his abdomen teasingly before twisting so he was facing outward. He raised his arms then curled them toward his chest, letting out a tired exhale before closing his eyes.  
  
Jinki stared down at his husband for a short while, wondering why exactly he had come at all. Just as before, the two of them weren't socializing much outside of whenever they went to Kibum and Jonghyun's place. Which was often enough. To be honest, they probably spent most of their time there. Otherwise, they'd just be sitting alone in an empty house with the windows boarded up.  
  
Eventually, Jinki picked up his book once more, finding his place on the page. He struggled a bit at first, trying to figure out where to put his other hand. He settled it on Taemin’s head, and, when Taemin did not react, soon found himself playing thoughtlessly with the other’s hair. He twisted its strands gently between his fingers, easing back into the rhythm of his book.  
  
Taemin hummed, curling himself into a tighter ball and rubbing his cheek on Jinki’s thigh. Jinki smiled and scratched Taemin’s head lightly.  
  
Another few minutes of this passed before Taemin finally spoke up, his voice low. “We need to stop doing this.”  
  
“I thought you were asleep,” muttered Jinki, keeping his eyes trained on the book.  
  
“We need to stop doing this,” repeated Taemin.  
  
His brow furrowing together, Jinki placed the book face-down on the armrest and untangled his hand from Taemin’s hair. Taemin turned in his lap so he was lying on his back, facing upward at Jinki.  
  
“What do you mean, Taem?”  
  
Taemin sighed. “We need to stop being sad.”  
  
A sticky, uncomfortable silence fell over them, Jinki’s chest tightening. “Tae—”  
  
“I know we’re dead,” interrupted Taemin. “That’s pretty obvious, now.”  
  
Pushing himself up, Taemin twisted about on the couch so that he was sitting on his knees and facing Jinki. “But it’s not like everything’s changed, right? We’re still together, and we’ve both been twenty-five before. Now we’re twenty-five and together and it’s just… We weren't sad when we were this young and we weren’t sad before we died and I don’t want to be sad at all.”  
  
Taemin inhaled deeply, recollecting himself and angling his head downward to stare at his hands.  
  
Jinki bit down on his lip. “I don’t think that you can just stop being sad just because you want to.”  
  
“I want to be with you, Jinki. I’d be happier if you were with me, instead of sitting alone by myself. We’re here together, so we should spend time together, right?” Jinki did not respond immediately, so Taemin continued in a low and soft voice. “Please.”  
  
Jinki raised his head, looking about the room and running his hands repeatedly up and down his thighs. “Do you think Jonghyun and Kibum have the right idea?”  
  
Taemin peered up at him, eyes weary. “I don’t want to talk about the Gateway right now, Jinki.”  
  
“I mean about living in their old place. There’s no way in hell they lived in that apartment as old men, right?”  
  
There was a beat of hesitation before Taemin replied. “Are you saying we should move into our old apartment?”  
  
Jinki shrugged. “I don’t know. What do you think?”  
  
“I think that place has a fridge that’s way too small, the mattress sounds like a dying horse if you so much as sit on it, and a good half of the stove doesn’t work.”  
  
And as Taemin had ranted, as his voice had grown higher and more frustrated at the mere _thought_ of moving back in there, Jinki felt a smile grow on his own lips. One he couldn’t stop or slow, and one which, once Taemin noticed it, made him grin back.  
  
“Why are you smiling?” Taemin asked while pushing Jinki’s shoulder playfully.  
  
“Because I never knew you hated that place so much!”  
  
“Oh come on, Jinki, it was literally the worst.” Taemin reached for Jinki’s hand, pulling it toward him. “Let’s go do something together. Go somewhere.”  
  
Jinki blinked. “Where would we go? And how are we even supposed to anywhere?”  
  
Before he had even finished that sentence Taemin was pulling him off the couch and onto his feet. “The doors, obviously,” replied Taemin simply, leading Jinki to the closet door. “They can take us anywhere we think of, right? So long as one of us has been there before.”  
  
“B-but Taem—”  
  
“But what?” Taemin replied, turning expertly on his heel to face Jinki, his other hand moving to the door handle. “Just go back to thirty years ago, okay? And imagine that I just asked you, ‘if you can go anywhere in the world right now, and it will just be the two of us, where would you want to go?’”  
  
“God, Taemin I—”  
  
Taemin tightened his grip on Jinki’s hand, pulling him a little closer. “Come on, Jinki,” he pleaded, voice soft. “Let’s go somewhere.”  
  
Jinki, holding his gaze with Taemin, thought for a moment. “Wherever you want.”  
  
“Then let’s go,” muttered Taemin, pulling the door open.  
  
**  
  
“Trips?”  
  
“Yep,” said Jinki, reaching across the table to add some kimchi to his wrap. The four of them were seated in Jinki and Taemin’s dining room around a full table of lettuce, rice, meat, and various side dishes. “Taemin used to travel a lot as a kid so we just go to places where he’s been before.”  
  
Jonghyun swallowed noisily, running his hand over his chin to catch the spilling juices. “What’s it like if you go somewhere outdoors? Where does the door even let out?”  
  
“At the Eiffel Tower we came out of the elevator at the top,” replied Taemin. “But for Mount Fuji we walked out of a store near the base.”  
  
Kibum’s eyes widened. “Did you climb it?”  
  
Taemin placed a slice of meat on his rice. “Yeah. It didn’t take too long, honestly. Since we don’t get tired.”  
  
“I’m just glad the weather was nice when you went there,” muttered Jinki. “It was raining in London.”  
  
Taemin’s brow furrowed together. “What do you expect? It’s always raining in London.”  
  
Kibum leaned back in his chair. “Maybe Jonghyun and I should take trips, too.” He looked over at his boyfriend, who was shoving an over-stuffed wrap into his jaw. “What do you say? It’d be a change of pace.”  
  
Jonghyun pushed the wrap between his teeth, his cheeks puffing up immediately and some juice leaking out from between his lips. Kibum chuckled, reaching for a napkin and wiping up Jonghyun's chin before kissing him on the cheek and running his fingers over the short hair on the side of his head.  
  
  
**  
  
Jinki couldn’t sleep.  
  
Okay, that was a lie. He could. Sleep was different here, after all. But he didn’t want to.  
  
He had been lying in bed with Taemin snoozing next to him for over an hour, chewing over his thoughts, hoping that one would finally settle his mind so that he’d be comfortable enough to close his eyes.  
  
That never happened, however, and Jinki decided he did not want to be alone.  
  
So he carefully eased himself out of bed, making sure it did not move too much with the shift of his weight, and then tip-toed toward his closet. There was just enough light peeking through the edges of the cardboard they had taped to the windows to guide him safely to the door, which he opened and slid silently through.  
  
Kibum and Jonghyun’s apartment, too, was near pitch-black. Jinki’s heart sank at first, his hope that the two of them would still be up flitting out before he realized that what little light there was pouring into the room was coming from up the stairs. _They might just be playing some games_ , thought Jinki, hope resurging in his chest as he made his way across the apartment and then up the stairs.  
  
When he turned the corner at the end of the stairs to enter the den, he found Jonghyun, dressed in a massive white tee and basketball shorts, seated cross-legged on the floor in front of the TV. The floor was littered with snacks and the same bottles of soju the four of them were now rather accustomed to sharing whenever they spent time in Kibum and Jonghyun’s home—the ones with the pink ribbons.  
  
Jonghyun had been playing a game when Jinki entered, but paused it and, dropping the controller onto his lap, turned to Jinki with wide and somewhat confused eyes.  
  
"Kibum's asleep," he said dryly.  
  
“Ah, t-that’s okay,” stuttered Jinki. “Taemin’s asleep, too. I was just looking for some company…”  
  
Jinki’s words hung in the air, growing heavier and heavier with each passing second, Jonghyun’s gaze boring into him as Jinki questioned whether or not he should leave. If he was intruding on some private ritual and Jonghyun just didn’t know how to tell him to go.  
  
Jonghyun turned away from Jinki and reached forward, producing a second controller from the shelf and placing it gently on the floor beside him. “You can play.”  
  
"Thanks," replied Jinki with a smile, relief bubbling inside of him as he sat down next to Jonghyun, who restarted the game in two player mode. Jinki recognized the game as the one which Kibum said he had bought Jonghyun for a birthday, so he picked up the controls rather easily once the battles started again.  
  
Jonghyun was a bit better than him, it seemed, but only marginally so. He unleashed his player’s most powerful strikes almost immediately during the first wave of enemies, something that made Jinki panic inwardly until he noticed the lethal combo Jonghyun was executing, and the two eliminated the first wave of enemies with their health almost entirely intact and three minutes to spare on the clock.  
  
“Wow, you’re really good at this game.”  
  
Jonghyun gave a sideways smile. “Thanks, you’re not bad yourself.”  
  
It was with this small exchange that Jinki realized what he had really been craving rather than sleep.  Talking to someone. Oh Christ, he wanted to talk to someone.  
  
It seemed Jonghyun, however, wanted to stare at a screen and mash buttons. So Jinki swallowed the desire culminating in his throat and readied himself for the second wave.  
  
It took them about thirty minutes to complete all of the waves, and, as they were looting the bodies and organizing the booty from various treasure chests, Jinki could hold back no longer.  
  
“Do you mind if we talk?”  
  
It took Jonghyun too long to answer; the silence was too thick, too sticky for a casual conversation over the rush of a video game. Jinki’s eyes wandered to Jonghyun’s side of the screen, practically frozen on the menu for his skill tree.  
  
“J-Jonghyun?”  
  
There was another pause this time, another hesitation that coiled around Jinki’s own throat.  
  
“I don’t want to talk.”  
  
Jinki’s throat clamped up. “J-Jonghyun, I just—”  
  
“I’m not good at it,” Jonghyun interrupted simply.  
  
Jinki pressed pause on the game, turning about to face Jonghyun, who was holding his controller limply in his hand. He was still facing the screen, eyes dark and jaw tense, face void of color.  
  
“Jonghyun…” Jinki began, the word heavy on his tongue. He swallowed thickly, trying to organize the swamp his thoughts had become as Jonghyun stared at the TV. “How…how old are you?”  
  
And that got a reaction out of him. Jonghyun’s eyes flashed to Jinki’s, holding his gaze for a moment before he sprang to his feet and lunged forward to turn the TV off. Then, he spun on his heel back toward Jinki, his hands curved into fists and shoulders tense.  
  
“When did you die, Jinki?” Jonghyun asked. His voice was strained, gritty. “What year was it?”  
  
Jinki blinked, and he stared up at Jonghyun as all the veins in his body seemed to shrink, sending an intense sort of pressure through his system. “Why?”  
  
“Because time probably works passes the same way here as it does out there,” explained Jonghyun quickly. “And you and Kibum came here at around the same time, right? So you probably died just a few days apart and it’s just…,” Jonghyun’s voice faltered, practically tightening around itself before he managed to continue. “I have to know.”  
  
Jinki exhaled, trying to regain some semblance of control over his own emotions, all the while feeling Jonghyun’s eyes burning into his. “So I guess you and Kibum didn’t come here together?”  
  
“Not everyone’s as lucky as you and Taemin,” Jonghyun replied under his breath as he dropped to the floor across from Jinki. He sat with his legs stretched outward before pulling his knees up to his chest, peering at Jinki over them. Jinki waited for Jonghyun to speak again, to explain more or to ask another question. But he didn’t. He only stared.  
  
Jinki swallowed thickly. “Why can’t you just ask Kibum yourself?”  
  
Jonghyun shook his head vigorously. “I can’t. I just can’t and I couldn’t bring myself to look at his book either.” His eyes settled once again on Jinki. “Please just tell me.”  
  
Jinki hesitated, his thoughts buzzing about in his brain because fuck this may not be the right thing to do. It was just a year, just a date yet Jonghyun’s eyes were burning holes into his skin and sparking in his veins.  
  
His voice was low when he finally spoke. “It was 2066.”  
  
Jonghyun’s face paled even more, his eyes rounding as he pushed his chin off his knees. “Oh,” he breathed. “Oh. That’s a really long time.”  
  
Jinki’s ribcage seemed to be shrinking, tightening around his lungs and heart. “Jonghyun…”  
  
“Do you know how old that body is?” Jonghyun asked, his voice direct and unflappable. “How old the body you’re in right now is?’  
  
Biting down on his lip, Jinki drew a strained breath through his nose. “I don’t know, mid-twenties? Twenty-five?”  
  
“And have you seen these?” Jonghyun dove forward, grabbing one of the soju bottles by the neck and drawing it toward him, pointing toward the pink ribbon still tied around it in a crumpled bow. “Here, on the inside…Look.”  
  
He held the tail ends of the bow with one finger, pulling it straight until it came completely undone, then flipped it around to reveal, in a delicate and careful handwriting: _Happy birthdey, Jjong_.  
  
“He messed up with the spelling,” explained Jonghyun, letting go of the ribbon and watching it fall to the floor. “Probably felt really stupid so he flipped it inside out. He didn’t write on any of the other ribbons.”  
  
Jinki inhaled deeply, trying to ease the heat that was burning at the base of his neck, the pressure in his head. “You mean Kibum, right?”  
  
“And you’re twenty-five, just so you know,” continued Jonghyun, folding his legs neatly beneath him and wrapping his hands around his ankles. “That body you’re in is from your twenty-fifth birthday, to be exact.”  
  
  
Jinki’s brows furrowed together. He looked down, peering at his open hands as though they would somehow confirm what Jonghyun had just said. When he looked up again, Jonghyun’s eyes were boring into his own. “But how do you—”  
  
“I used to think that there wasn't any difference between your alive body and this one, that it was from the day you died, but when Kibum came he seemed really shocked and kept talking about how young he was.”  
  
Jinki’s heart stopped in his chest.  
  
“I know it’s on your twenty-fifth birthday because of my hair,” Jonghyun continues, either ignoring or oblivious to Jinki’s current state of shock. He ran his hand over the shaved side of his head, eyes drifting down to the floor. “Got it done on Friday, as an early birthday present. Kibum wanted to go home afterward, probably to drink these—” he pokes a soju bottle with one finger and it topples to the floor with a dull thud “—but I had found them and I didn’t really want to sit in our apartment and drink together, so I made him take us out to karaoke instead.  
  
“Saturday was my twenty-fifth birthday. We had birthday morning sex and then we were on the KTX to Busan. We put our stuff down in the hotel, ate something and then met up with our friends. A buddy had bought an old fishing boat and fixed it up a bit, so we all climbed on and he drove us out. Far, I think. I don’t really know but it was far enough away that it was pretty dark. And we were drinking and partying and dancing.”  
  
Here, Jonghyun paused. He kept his eyes on Jinki’s, his gaze steady.  
  
“And then I fell off,” he said flatly. “One second I was dancing and then the next the ground was gone from my feet and I hit the water. And I was scared out of my mind and I hurt everywhere because the water was so damn cold, and my lungs were already stinging. And I knew I had to get to the surface, so I tried to swim but a wave pushed me back. And then I was here.”  
  
“Christ,” breathed Jinki. “Christ, Jonghyun, I had no idea—”  
  
“I read my book. The last page, I mean. It said I hit my head on a rock.” Jonghyun dropped his eyes, bending at the neck so he was staring down at his hands as he blew out air. “I don’t know if they ever found my body. They must’ve, right? Bodies float so someone probably found me once the sun came up.”  
  
Jinki’s mind felt like it had been whipped clean, lacking any reasonable or even coherent response. He was shaking too, but he noticed this only as he reached out a hand to place on Jonghyun’s shoulder. “Jesus Christ…”  
  
“If it was 2066, that means Kibum was seventy-seven when he died. He was twenty-six when I fell off the boat.”  
  
Jinki’s heart sank to his stomach, a bitter taste growing in his mouth as he inched forward. “H-have you been here for all that time?”  
  
Jonghyun’s voice cracked. “Yeah.”  
  
“Christ,” Jinki exhaled, scooting forward again to place both of his hands on Jonghyun’s arms, squeezing them probably just a bit too hard above the elbow. “Were you alone, Jonghyun?”  
  
Jonghyun did not speak for a moment and Jinki’s grip tightened.  
  
“D-do you know about the doors?”  
  
“What? Of course I know about the doors, Jonghyun, what do they have to—”  
  
“Have you ever tried to find your son?”  
  
Jinki blinked, his hands falling from Jonghyun’s arms. Jonghyun looked up, his cheeks discolored and his eyes swelling and wet. “Your son. You have one, right? Have you tried to find him with the doors?”  
  
Jinki’s heart felt like it was giving out, like it was catching fire and freezing at the same time.  
  
Jonghyun pushed himself off the floor, Jinki quickly rising and following him to the opposite side of the room, where a bright-red door was situated in the center of the wall. Jonghyun stopped some feet away from it but kept his eyes trained ahead even as he spoke.  
  
“You can find people with the doors. That’s how Kibum and I found you guys, by asking the doors to take us to someone fun or whatever. Try finding him.”  
  
His heart pumping ice into his veins, Jinki took a heavy step forward, the action sending chills through his system. As he neared the door, his thoughts just sped, images flashing before his eyes while his heart was beating even in the very tips of his fingers.  
  
Minho was very small when he was a baby and hard to feed so Taemin and Jinki had constantly worried about his weight. And he once sped around so quickly on his tricycle he hit a wall and cut his forehead. And when he was a little older Jinki realized that he also had a little bit of a sideways smile, like Taemin, and he wondered if Minho had somehow picked it up from him or if it was pure genetic chance that the two of them, unrelated by blood, would somehow both grin like they were hiding something.  
  
And he thought about how Minho had the loudest, most unashamed laugh. And how whenever he got a bad grade on something he used to slump his shoulders like he was suddenly carrying the weight of the world. And how he used to actually wake up before even the sun rose so he could watch European soccer matches. And how, once, only a year or so before—  
  
Locked.  
  
Jinki was thrust back into reality to find himself in front of the door, one hand on the knob.  
  
He flicked his wrist and, again, the door didn’t open.  
  
“W-what’s going on?” Jinki asked, voice lined with panic as he tried the knob again and again, raising his other hand to press against the door as the metal knob clattered loudly with every desperate half-turn.  
  
“He’s not here,” said Jonghyun. Jinki angled his head to peer over his shoulder, and Jonghyun was staring certainly back at him.  “He’s on earth somewhere, and the doors won’t take you to earth. Just to our memories of it.”  
  
Jinki dropped the knob, a chill growing in his hands as he turned on his heel to face Jonghyun properly. “How do you know this? How did you know about the books?”  
  
Jonghyun’s eyes flashed to his, sending a chill down Jinki’s spine as he stepped out of the way, clearing the path for Jonghyun to approach the door himself.  
  
“Simple.” He breathed, staring at the door before pressing one hand to its surface, closing his eyes as his other hand groped for the knob. He inhaled sharply, voice strained and high-pitched when he spoke: “What the hell is going on here?”  
  
He had been leaning against the door with his whole weight, so that when it opened he stumbled into the next room, which Jinki recognized immediately as the one where Jinki’s and Taemin’s own books had been waiting for them. This time, however, there was only one book on the table, but Jonghyun drew back and shut the door almost immediately.  
  
“Simple,” repeated Jonghyun with a sigh, turning about to lean his back on the door.  
  
Jinki’s head was spinning, the weight forming in his chest growing heavier and heavier. He took several steps backward, the small of his back hitting a table in the center of the room.  
  
He stared at Jonghyun, who was hanging his head low and scratching his foot almost disinterestedly against the floor. He sniffled, loudly, and Jinki felt his heart break.  
  
 _Jesus, he's just a kid_  
  
He had to say something. There was no way in hell standing there silently like an idiot was the right thing to do.  
  
“Jonghyun,” he began, his voice already uncertain and wavering. He swallowed, trying to compose himself again. “What…what did you do for all those years?”  
  
He did not move his eyes from the floor. “Aside from stuff in your memory, there are a few other places you can go here: the Library, where your book is; the Entrance, which you cannot return to once you leave; the Gateway, but I don’t know what that room is like, obviously; and then there’s a certain type of room you can make yourself.”  
  
“What kind of room?”  
  
Raising his head, Jonghyun avoided Jinki’s gaze, keeping his eyes low. Jinki could even see the rise and fall of his chest.  
  
“Think about it, Jinki,” said Jonghyun softly. “There’s not a lot in this place if you think about it. Aside from your memories, and some stupid chairs and tables, what’s the only thing in this place? What makes any of this possible?”  
  
The answer was obvious. “The doors.”  
  
“The fucking doors,” hissed Jonghyun. “You can make rooms of doors. Just pick a number. I’ll show you.”  
  
Jinki’s heart was sinking, his insides twisting like snakes knotting together. “Jonghyun, what are you talking about?”  
  
“It’s simple, again, really fucking simple.” Jonghyun pushed himself off the door, twisting on his heel so forcefully it seemed he might lose balance and fall over. But he didn’t, and instead he secured one hand on the door’s knob and threw his head back over his shoulder. “Rooms of doors. See?”  
  
He opened the door, pulling it back far enough so Jinki could see inside as it stretched outward into a long, thin hallway lined by wooden doors on each side. The walls and doors were painted just as sadly and were just as worn as those in the Entrance and the Library. The hallway stretched onward, far past Jinki’s vision.  
  
“This is two thousand,” said Jonghyun, directing Jinki’s attention away from the hallway to where Jonghyun was standing, still holding onto the door. “But you can ask for more. And it’s just a long hallway with doors. Sometimes it’s so long you think it’ll never end. But they do.”  
  
Jinki stepped forward, reaching out a hand to run his fingers softly over the inside of Jonghyun’s wrist before curling them around and pulling him back. He had expected Jonghyun to resist—and he did a little, jumping at the sudden action before easing into it and letting Jinki lead him away.  
  
His heart pounding painfully against his ribcage, and confusion squeezing his veins and sloshing about in his mind, he managed to lead Jonghyun to the couch, facing away from the gaping door.  
  
He sat beside him, holding Jonghyun’s hand in his lap as Jonghyun stared down at the floor. “Jonghyun…why do you know about the hallways? About what you can do with the doors?”  
  
He was quiet for a while. Jinki let him be, let the silence curve around his own throat. Sometimes, he noticed he was squeezing Jonghyun’s hand way too hard.  
  
Before he spoke, Jonghyun inhaled, his voice strained and drowning. “I had to find him. I had to tell him I was sorry.”  
  
“Jonghyun…”  
  
“I died.”  
  
Jinki gave a small nod.  
  
“It’s my fault.”  
  
“No no, Jonghyun it’s not your fault at all. You—”  
  
“I left Kibum all alone,” he interrupted, drawing in a choked breath. “We were supposed to be together and I went and fucking died.”  
  
Jinki squeezed Jonghyun’s hand, shifting closer to him on the couch and wrapping a hand around his bent form. “It’s not your fault.”  
  
"I was here and I tried to go home because this had to be some kind of goddamned nightmare. But he wasn't there. And the computer didn't work so I couldn't get in contact with him and I was scared and confused and the doors told me what was going on. They brought me to my book and Kibum was the only person really mentioned on my page. The only person, so I figured it out."  
  
Jonghyun’s words were choked, his back heaving with every pathetic inhale and exhale. “That we were supposed to be together. Since the beginning of time we were supposed to be together and I was the one who fucked it up. I ruined it for us, our happy ending, our happy lives. It was going to be a good one, you know? It was going to be a good life.” He sniffled loudly, raising another hand to press to his hands. “Sure we were gay and Korea wasn’t the best place for that but…we were young, and Kibum’s father was rich and supportive a-and then I died.”  
  
Jinki bit down on his lip, running his hand over Jonghyun’s back. “Not every life in that book was perfect. For Taemin and I too, we had some bad lives and sometimes one of us died. You shouldn’t blame yourself, Jonghyun.”  
  
“I had to find him,” continued Jonghyun, his voice so strained by tears he was barely intelligible as he spoke down at the floor. “And I had to tell him I was sorry. That I had fucked everything up but the doors wouldn’t take me to him. They wouldn’t take me but I didn’t deserve to do anything except look for him, to tell him I was sorry for ruining everything…”  
  
His voice failed him then, and Jinki’s heart constricted.  
  
“So you tried doors.”  
  
Jonghyun nodded, gulping in air greedily.  
  
“You tried doors for over fifty years.”  
  
Jonghyun straightened, angling back his head and pulling his other hand away from Jinki's. He ran his fingers over his red, swelling cheeks and across his eyes, exhaling unevenly even as he tried to regulate the rhythm of his heart.  
  
Jinki had no words, only a strange sort of pain in the center of his chest, like something was growing there and pushing his lungs and heart away. He lowered the hand on Jonghyun’s back to trace his fingers over his side and pull him a little closer, his other hand tightening into a fist.  
  
It took Jonghyun a while before he was able to speak again, his lips lined with red and eyes swollen, tear stains marking his cheeks. He stared ahead, at the TV.  
  
“When I found him, he was somewhere I didn’t recognize, had probably just gotten there when I showed up. He was standing ahead of me by just a few feet, but I knew it was him, and I brought him back here with me and I showed him his book and told him we were supposed to be together and we decided, right there and then, that we’d go through. That we’d live again.”  
  
Jinki found himself once more reaching for Jonghyun’s hand, and this time Jonghyun coiled their fingers together, squeezing Jinki tightly.  
  
“Why haven’t you gone through yet?” Jinki asked softly.  
  
“Kibum wanted to wait,” Jonghyun replied, turning his head so he was _finally_ facing Jinki properly. “He said he wasn’t ready yet. So we’re waiting.”  
  
“Well, that's okay. It's hard letting go, to let go of who you are right now."  
Jonghyun inhaled. “Or maybe he’s waiting for someone.”  
  
Jinki’s brow furrowed together. “W-what do you mean?”  
  
“I don’t know what if he’s done for past fifty-one years, Jinki,” Jonghyun explained. “What if he got married to someone else? What if he has kids? What if he doesn’t even care about me and he’s just pretending and—”  
  
“You haven’t asked him what he did after you passed away?”  
  
“How the hell am I even supposed to ask that? Hey, Bum, have you fucked anyone in the past fifty-one years? While I’ve been here, fucking waiting for you, did you fall in love with anyone else? Did you forget about me?”  
  
“Woah, Jonghyun,” said Jinki softly, squeezing his hand. “I don’t know what he did either but… you don’t just fall out of love with people like that.  Even if he did see other people or date, there was always a part of him that loved you. He obviously loves you now. There’s no way he doesn't love you now, with the way he looks at you.”  
  
Jonghyun sniffled, shaking his head. “But he doesn’t care. I can never get a reaction out of him no matter what I do. I bring out these bottles every time we drink and he never blinks twice. I keep my hair fucking styled just like how it was when I died and I’ve worn the same clothes as that day and he never does anything. He doesn't even look twice at me, doesn’t get angry or sad or fucking anything no matter what I do.”  
  
“Jonghyun, it’s been fifty-one years. He’s had fifty-one years to make peace with it. To heal.”  
  
“And so have I.”  
  
“You spent fifty years trying to open locked doors, Jonghyun,” explained Jinki. “That’s not healing at all.”  
  
Jonghyun dropped his head, but Jinki pushed off the couch, still holding Jonghyun’s hand. “Come on, you need to talk to Kibum.”  
  
Jonghyun looked up at him, mouth open as though to speak, but Jinki beat him to it.  
  
“You spent too long trying locked doors, I think you’ve forgotten that it’s open now. Kibum is _here_ , he is here with you and I’m sure he wants to talk to you about all these things too.”  
  
Jonghyun pulled his hand back, but Jinki’s grip was too sure. “But what if he doesn’t?”  
  
Jinki pulled him up onto his feet, and Jonghyun followed as Jinki led him back to the hallway of doors. Jinki pushed it closed and, loosening his fingers from Jonghyun’s, stood beside him and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder.  
  
“Try the door, Jonghyun. Ask for Kibum.”  
  
Jonghyun’s eyes flashed to him, then to the door. He bit down on his lip, breathing out unsteadily through his nose as he continued to stare.  
  
“Y-you’re sure?”  
  
“I’m sure, Jonghyun.”  
  
And Jonghyun reached out one hand, hesitating for a few beats once he finally gripped the knob, and Jinki swallowed down the knot that was growing in his own throat and Jonghyun opened the door.  
  
Light from the den poured into the dark bedroom, bringing into sight a simple and scarcely-furnished room. A small movement caught Jinki's eyes, and he turned his attention to a figure on the bed, his face well-lit as he blinked in the sudden light.  
  
Kibum pushed himself up onto his elbows, one eye still shut. “J-Jonghyun?”  
  
“Kibum…Bum…”  
  
Kibum pushed himself onto his feet, his eyes now wide and alert. “Is something wrong? What’s going on?”  
  
Jonghyun choked and rushed forward into the room, directly into Kibum’s arms. Kibum, wide-eyed and confused, wrapped his arms protectively around his boyfriend, drawing him impossibly close. “Jjong? Are you okay? What happened? What’s wrong? Why are you crying, Jonghyun?”  
  
Jinki wasn’t sure if Kibum ever noticed him, paid him even the slightest bit of attention before Jinki shut the door, leaving the two alone.  
  
He walked down the stairs and left their apartment through the front door, stumbling about in the semi-darkness. In the main room, he found himself pausing for a moment, wondering if he could possibly hear Kibum and Jonghyun through the door leading to their bedroom. Then he remembered nothing was really connected here. At least not rooms.  
  
Jinki walked into his own home through the front door. He didn’t trip or stumble in the dark, his steps sure, although blind.  
  
The door to their bedroom was open, a soft yellow light pouring into the hallway.  
  
“Sneaking out late at night, are we?” said Taemin teasingly. He was sitting up on the bed, reading from a book by lamplight. He was even wearing his reading glasses even though, as Jinki himself had discovered, they no longer needed such things here. “If we weren’t dead and the only two people we know weren’t dating, I’d accuse you of cheating.”  
  
Jinki smiled wryly, entering the bedroom and walking around to Taemin’s side. “How do you know I didn’t just come back from a wild threesome?”  
  
Taemin hmphed, closing his book and removing his glasses gingerly. “Because why would you have a threesome when you could invite me and have a foursome?”  
  
“Too many limbs,” retorted Jinki, placing his hands on the mattress and leaning downward to press his lips to Taemin’s.  
  
When he pulled away, Taemin was smiling. “Get in here.”  
  
Grinning, Jinki threw off his shirt as Taemin pulled back the covers, letting Jinki slide in on top of him.  
  
The first time they had slept together after dying had been rushed, awkward. They had done it only because they did not know what else to do, and both wanted to be reminded that at least the other was with them.  
  
But now, everything was coming back to Jinki. He was relearning things he had known for decades.  
  
When his fingers brushed softly against Taemin’s bare abdomen, who gasped and clenched his eyes tightly shut, Jinki remembered the first time they had been together. Taemin had pushed his hand away, “ _I-I’m ticklish_.”  
  
And when Taemin’s soft lips pressed at the base of his neck he remembered their first kiss. On their second date, Taemin had grabbed him by the wrist and kissed him until he felt his heart would stop working.  
  
And then when their elbows knocked together, Taemin let out a laugh that brought Jinki back to years before. Over thirty years ago, he had heard Taemin’s goofy laugh and that had made him ask him out.  
  
Taemin was warm. Unbelievably warm. Like he was radiating heat, like he was the sun. Taemin was soft, Taemin’s hands were tracing Jinki’s curves, Taemin was kissing him, and Jinki realized he knew Taemin better than anything else.  
  
And he was knowing Taemin again, relearning him in the exploration of both of their hands, the touches against skin, the press of a familiar taste on his tongue. He knew Taemin and Taemin knew him, yet there was something new to this. Something bubbling beneath the surface as Jinki held Taemin close to him and Taemin held him back and the two of them both knew.  
  
When they finished, a mess of limbs and sweat, Jinki spoke.  
  
“I… I want to fall in love with you again, Taemin.”  
  
A smile grew on Taemin’s lips. “Yeah, I’d like that.” He raised his own hand, running a finger over Jinki’s chest. “I’d like to see your shocked face when I kiss you for the first time again.”  
  
“Then I’ll kiss you first next time,” said Jinki teasing, curving a hand around Taemin’s hip to tap a rhythm into his skin. “And I’ll throw rocks at your window and serenade you.”  
  
Taemin chuckled. “I think I might actually fall for that.”  
  
“Of course you will, it’s me after all.”  
  
“And we’ll have kids again, won’t we?”  
  
“Of course.”  
  
“Let’s do more this time around. Three, maybe. I think it would be fun to have a fuller house.”  
  
Jinki nodded. “I like the sound of that, too.”  
  
They quieted, staring, feeling the heat of the other in their hands.  
  
It was Taemin who spoke up first. “Do you think Jonghyun and Kibum will be okay if we leave now?”  
  
Jinki nodded. “Yeah. They’ll be fine.”  
  
“Maybe we’ll see them in our next life,” muttered Taemin. “I liked them.”  
  
“Maybe,” Jinki breathed. “I liked them, too.”  
  
They slid out of bed on Taemin’s side, locking their fingers together and stepping toward the door to Taemin’s closet.  
  
They turned to face each other, both leaning in and the same time for a kiss.  
  
“I love you,” muttered Jinki.  
  
“I love you too,” Taemin breathed. “I’m going to love you forever, okay?”  
  
Jinki nodded. “I know. And I’m going to love you always, too.”  
  
They squeezed their hands together into the small slotted handle of Taemin's closet and pulled it open together. They both thought of another life together, their next chance to love and live together.  
  
There wasn’t anything on the other side. Instead, everything went away. The floor from beneath Jinki’s feet, even the weight of his own body, and his sight. It was white, everything white and senseless again.  
  
Senseless save for the feeling of Taemin, his warmth in his hand, where Taemin was somewhere, somehow, still holding onto him.  
  
He wasn’t sure how he spoke, but the knowledge Taemin was still there, still with him, brought out the words. “I love you.”  
  
 _I love you, too_.  
  
“It might be a while before I get to say those words to you again.”  
  
 _Then make sure you mean them once you do._  
  
“I will.”


End file.
